So started working on the interior of the boot area,first job was to remove the tar "sound deadening",used Tardis for this and it scraped off quite easily:

Before:

Got it down to bare metal,slightly underestimated the amount of time it would take to do this,taken me around 15 hours of grinding lol

First coat of primer:

This is where I'm at with the driver arch,don't think I can do much better than this and I don't want to leave the bare metal too much time exposed so I will tidy up these corners where I've been applying the gel and then I'll coat it in Electrox

Been applying the Dynax S-50 in all the cavities,here shown penetration is good.

Gave a quick coat of primer to the arch before it starts rusting again:

Electrox on the driver strut top,still a llittle bit of work to do,little rust spots in the corners:

Started refurbishing the front struts prior to installing upgraded components,firstly removed the bearings and smoothed out the small "bumps" as they will interfere with the coilovers I'm planning to fit:

Removed the flaky rust to ease the job for the Deox-c,before:

and after:

Wanted to check the sunroof for a while as I know they leak and might cause rust in the corners where water just sits,sure enough:

I'll just be cutting out the metal brackets that supports the sunroof assembly and remove it completely as I'm not a fan of it and never use it,by being careful it can be cut out quite neatly and looks original from the outside,there is one company that makes a carbon fiber blank that looks pretty nice,expensive though.

Strut top passenger side start:

Wire brushed the loose stuff off and left it with the Deox,no holes so far so that's good.

After 2nd application:

Made some panels to cover the rear axle mounting holes,cut out from mild steel and then painted in Electrox and covered in carbon fiber wrap,and on this subject I've to say I always would prefer the real thing but the wrap has come a long way from when I first used it years ago and I think it looks decent.

Cut out the last bit of metal that was spot welded on the rear bumper panel as it looks more tidy.

Before and after:

Cut out the rot on the passenger arch and also the bumper bracket which will be replaced with a genuine one:

Back on the driver sideskirt,I've cut out all of the damaged metal that was too far gone expect this part,this below is located inside the sideskirt and the portion of it that faces down towards the outside look okay and could be saved,however had no idea how the other side towards the inside of the car was looking so bought a usb camera that connects to my phone and took some pictures,not looking very good:

Now,I could just treat it with the S-50 which is advertised as able to stop existing corrosion but I believe this is too far gone for me to confindently use this method,what is left to do is just cut out the affected metal,not easy though as access is very limited but I should be able to find a way to do it.

Not sure on how the corrosion process goes with this part but I believe that the drainage pipe from the sunroof that runs from the roof all the way down to both of the sideskirts have something to do with it,for reference this is how the passenger side looks:

I went ahead and sprayed the Dynax S-50 on this side.

Front struts refurbishment.

Front struts condition before the Deox-C bath for reference:

In they go:

Passenger strut ready:

Painted up with the Electrox (spray):

Driver strut:

Painted up:

Also,in the process of disconnecting everything to remove the engine I've found out someone has been messing with the starter motor wiring,one of the connections has been cut out and the green wire from the starter wasn't connected to anything,another thing to fix on the list.

Engine removal.

Bought an engine crane:

Removed the engine:

Put the engine on the stand:

Engine bay as it stands:

While taking the top engine mount off noticed the lower buffer wasn't in a very nice shape:

The whole unit will be replaced with a Gr.N one.

Heavy duty wishbone ball joints from Spoox:

3rd application passenger arch:

Seam sealed the boot floor:

In the process of stripping down the power steering rack to convert it to non power steering,read a dozen people keeping the same rack and going down the same route so decided to do the same,removed the ram,pipes,pump and everthing not needed,one of the unions was quite rusty so decided to cut the pipe so I could use a socket and impact and came out pretty easily,probably would have rounded it with a spanner.

Left it with a garage a while ago (before getting off the road) to fix a power steering pump pipe that was leaking due to the steering arm rubbing against it because of the angle they work with the car lowered,nice to see they messed up the thread on one of the unions,or somebody else did...still,will retap the threads when the new taper arrives:

Then just replaced the boots and cleaned up the rack a little bit,just waiting for the blanking bolts and the grease gun applicator to apply some grease through the grease nipples,will also be painting the arms which I took off and new uniball rod ends installed.

Received back the wishbones from the bracing thanks to Spoox,they also blasted and power coated them,they've done a fantastic job,very happy with the result,plate is 6mm thickness:

Fitting the ball joints was a bit of a pain even because of the angle of the wishbone,took an hour and half,while pressing they were going in at a weird angle but luckily was able to straighten them up and press them in all they way,maxed out my 6 ton press should really have a 10ton for this,from what I can see they seem to be seated where they are supposed to so hopefully they will be okay once fitted to the car:

Applied some clear silicone to the back just to keep water and dirt out:

Marked up the sunroof hole so that I can center up the blanking panel easily (I'll give a good clean to the rest of the roof soon):

Made some blanking panels for the rear boot vents,tried with a 5mm square piece to guide the cuts and that helped a lot getting the lines straight:

great write up mate! Just be advised, if you do use Group N Engine mounts they will vibrate through the whole car, as there's no flex in the engine, but the car will feel a lot faster though! I had this on my Saxo until I bought an original set of mounts and go them put back on. If the car is a weekend motor then you shouldn't have a problem.

This looks exactly the same as my saxo at the moment, stripped bare! the only difference is that you are making progress. I sometimes pay mine a visit and think about working on the poor thing but lost motivation at the moment.

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